Gender and Brahmam

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 12 Apr 2007, 01:19

This is the philosophical offshoot of the light-hearted discussion on sex in
http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=44575#p44575
We can define 'brahmin' as 'brahmam vAsatE iti' (since the Supreme resides there).
By that token everything is brahmin by the mahAvAkya 'sarvam khalu idam brahmam'.
A more discriminatory definition is 'brahmam jAnItE iti' (since he knows the Supreme) which restricts the title 'brahmin' only to those who have cultivated the study of the vedas. Let us not dispute!

Note that the word 'brahmam' in sanskrit is neutre. It is 'asexual' (not 'nonsexual'). The difference is between 'alinga' vs 'nirlinga'. Let me explain. The word 'adhanan' (tasya dhanam na vidyatE) means one who never had any wealth. On the otherhand 'nirdhanan' (ADhyaH tu sadyaH dhanam na vidyatE) means he was rich but now he does not have wealth(he lost it!). To start with 'brahmam' had no sex (asexual)(no form either!). The mark 'linga' (don't confuse with the western interpretaion of phallus) is a characterization. lIyate iti lingam (since it dissolves (into 'nothing'/'infinite').This mark distinguished itself into matter (shava) and energy ('i') or male and female principles (the equation is
shava + i <===> shiva).
What we may call 'shiva' and 'shakti' as distinct entity. The manifestation of both together(two-in-one) is the 'ardhanArI' principle. The indistinguishable merger of both 'sexes' is again 'shivam' which is a neutre word (but here it is 'nonsexual').

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 12 Apr 2007, 02:33

Thanks, CML, for the illuminating explanation. Whither we come from is not that important. That we are all one, is what matters most...

Mahakavi,
I didn't invite saraswathi to sit on all our tongues, displacing herself form her favorite perch. It is simply asking for wisdom and knowledge to reside in our words, the quill tip, pen tip and key board...

vgvindan · Post by **vgvindan** » 12 Apr 2007, 13:03

cml,
You seem to have taken my comment literally. I did not mean to say that there is any gender in brahman.

In a state, which is beyond both jnAna and ajnAna, beyond any dvandva, beyond words and thought, and which cannot even be 'known' - how can there be any differentiation of gender?

I thought you were punning on the 'man' of the word 'brahman' and joined the fun by sharing my views about pre-eminence of female gender over male gender in the order of creation which has been proved by modern scientific studies.

BTW, can someone clarify why is SRngAra bhAva the exclusive privilege of women and not men? Though Bharati has tried his hand at it, it did not seem to work. Is it because of our social conditioning?

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 12 Apr 2007, 20:37

VG,
Possible. Again, being a woman, I would say it was the idea of men to keep it that way--to see women as love objects, pretty dolls playing sweet games. Who knows? Brothers, please don't take offence. No fierce feminism on my part here. Just an inkling...

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 12 Apr 2007, 20:49

arasi wrote:VG,
Possible. Again, being a woman, I would say it was the idea of men to keep it that way--to see women as love objects, pretty dolls playing sweet games. Who knows? Brothers, please don't take offence. No fierce feminism on my part here. Just an inkling...

There is some truth in what you say. But let me ask you a question- would you/women like to see/think of men as dolls/love objects?

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 12 Apr 2007, 21:15

Young Boys like Soldiers
Young girls like Dolls

Big Boys like Dolls
Big Girls like Soldiers.

Sign in a US Army Hostel.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 12 Apr 2007, 21:33

The superiority of men is asserted in all religions! God is essentially Masculine. According to western religions God made man in his own image! Only in Hinduism we have Devi Cult (this I agree is a wrong term) where parAshakti (feminine principle) is supreme.

According to evolution Sex emerged much later and there are some logical explanations. Again the biology of 'sex changes' does prove that we are essentially bisexual. Even if we ignore the physical differences the two sexes are mountains apart in their psyche. It is likely that in the next 50 years the differences will be narrowed and neither of the sexes will be 'sex objects'. Indeed we will become 'asexual'; back to Godhead:) Is that an inviting prospect?

ksrimech · Post by **ksrimech** » 12 Apr 2007, 23:14

cmlover wrote:God is essentially Masculine.

nammAzhwar says "AN allan peN allan allAl aliyum allan".

sub - How would you interpret it?

vgvindan · Post by **vgvindan** » 13 Apr 2007, 00:19

Of all the emotions, love is most natural not only to human beings but also animals. We have given that lovely emotion different names. Of all such 'loves' the sexual love is most natural and potent. See the ease with which Radha, Meera and ANDAL could channelise this love and attain the parama puruSha!

No matter how much I may try, I cannot imagine myself thinking of - what Sri tyAgarAja calls - 'para nAri' as a wife. There is a mental block. What is it?

Is the psyche and male and female so variant that what is permitted for one is prohibited for the other?

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 13 Apr 2007, 00:20

AN allaH
peN alla
ali allaH
allaahu akbar !

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 13 Apr 2007, 00:29

wrong to say 'sexual love' is the strongest!
The mother's love fpr the baby which is totally different is equally if not more potent!
Even bonds of friendship (call it fraternal love) are occasioanlly stronger!
At the chemical level all these are mediated by different hormones
In fact the loose term 'bhakti' can take any of these different forms!

Suji Ram · Post by **Suji Ram** » 13 Apr 2007, 01:20

cmlover wrote:It is likely that in the next 50 years the differences will be narrowed and neither of the sexes will be 'sex objects'. Indeed we will become 'asexual'; back to Godhead:) Is that an inviting prospect?

CML,
Allah jAne kyA hOgA AgE...

nammAzhwar says "AN allan peN allan allAl aliyum allan".

Right translation please...

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 13 Apr 2007, 01:28

Suji Ram wrote:nammAzhwar says "AN allan peN allan allAl aliyum allan".

Right translation please...

"He" is not a man (AN); neither a woman (peN); nor is "He" a eunuch/asexual/hermaphrodite (ali).

IMHO nammAzhwAr made a fundamental error here. Tha I think is because he was still immersed in hari ( a HE) when writing this. So he said "allan" whle it would have been apt to say "alla". The "an" suffix (uRubu) intrinsically implies the male sex. My 2 paise worth.

ksrimech · Post by **ksrimech** » 13 Apr 2007, 01:39

drshrikaanth wrote:IMHO nammAzhwAr made a fundamental error here.

Hmm nice . Still waiting for sub.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 13 Apr 2007, 04:20

Let me get into nammAzhvAr's shoes (pAdukais) now and say, peN allan, AN allan, aliyum allan. It is a state of mind, I think, on naMMAzhvAr's part. It was was his sense of wonderment and then a blissful state while he sings His praise but still feels limited in his expressions of awe. Did he think--'being a man, considering I'm human, I can't love Him as a woman would love a man, being a man, it isn't imaginable for me'. How about an ali, he wonders, assuming that it covered the capability for loving both genders (shrink supremes, don't dismiss me saying 'do you know how many shades of them exist? Don't you think there are those who don't particularly care for the opposite sex?')
I am now coming to the point CML made. nammAzhvAr's kind of love can be experienced in a lesser sense by all of us. bhakthi, love for a child, friendship, love for one's loving mate, love for Nature--all of these give us a glimpse into the AzhvAr's state of mind.
The araiyar dance also comes to mind.
By the way, though it is fine by me, is sex and brahmam a bit misleading for those who merely browse? Does gender and brahmam make it any better? This isn't a prudish remark, by the way...

karthik76 · Post by **karthik76** » 13 Apr 2007, 10:32

From the bhAgavatam :

drshtvAnuyAntam rshim Atmajam api anangam
devyO hriyA paridadhur na sutasya chitram
tadvIkshya prcchati munau jagadustavAsti
strIpumbhidA na tu sutasya vivikta drshtE

After all, beauty does seem to lie in the eyes of the beholder !!!

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 14 Apr 2007, 02:59

devyaH hriyA paridadhuH = Ladies coveredup through shyness
means that the ladies were ashamed, and not that vyasa by any means did not have vivikta d^riShti (discriminating vision). Did those women have a superior knowledge to state 'tava asti strIpumbhidA' (you have male/female discrimination) to vyasa himself? Certianly not! It is rather the perception of their immature mind. Lord Krishna himself told the Gopis to lift up their hands shamelessly when He was hiding their clothes so that they may purge the element of 'shame' from their minds. Again He did not help Draupadi until she let go her clothings divested of shame while seeking His help.

Shame is indeed an element culturally generated among humans which does nothave a biological basis. It was not there among primitive humans (eg., Apes don't have them). It is likely it will disappear through evolution after the gender differences start fading.

Shankar

Can you explain why shame/shyness/('lajjA') is not part of the nava rasa though it is an important human emotion?

karthik76 · Post by **karthik76** » 14 Apr 2007, 04:06

I have read that the skanda purAna mentions vyasa having married Jabali's daughter Pinjala. Suka was born to them. Suka stayed in his mother's womb for 12 years and agreed to come out only after Krishna assured him that he would not be affected by mAyA.

Perhaps vyasa's vividha drshti was perceived as conditional by the ladies!!!

We all have an absolute identity (the brahmam), a relatively-absolute identity (the undeniable individual person 'I') and a collective identity (the adjustments to 'I' that are acceptably made by the social environment and our evolution process). Our feelings and emotions (like our personality) manifest themselves through a combination of the latter two identities. Shame is no exception.

These were the identities that Krishna wanted the gopIs and draupadi to lose.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 14 Apr 2007, 04:19

cmlover wrote:Shankar
Can you explain why shame/shyness/('lajjA') is not part of the nava rasa though it is an important human emotion?

CML,
I was told that like the primary colors, the navarasas are stand alone rasas - while the others can be derived from a combination of two or more of the navarasas: lajjA is probably a combination of fear (of detection) and a bit of bIbatsa...
Corrections and alternate explanations welcome!

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 14 Apr 2007, 04:32

rshankar wrote:lajjA is probably a combination of fear (of detection) and a bit of bIbatsa... !

We were discussing the same here. But lajjA is not so simple. What about the bashfulness that a wife feels in front of her husband? Surely not bhIbatsa (in most cases

and not so much fear. You may add SRngAra. But I think lajjA cannot simply be explained as combination of our known rasas. Very complex in any case.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 14 Apr 2007, 04:43

drshrikaanth wrote:What about the bashfulness that a wife feels in front of her husband? Surely not bhIbatsa (in most cases and not so much fear. You may add SRngAra. But I think lajjA cannot simply be explained as combination of our known rasas. Very complex in any case.

Maybe in this case it is SRngAra plus fear (of losing control)...

bIbatsa + fear (of the unknown) as in Bharati's dikku teriyAda kATTil where the heroine laments 'vetkam konDozhia vizhittAn'

SRngAra and fear (of rejection) as in kalkI's mAlai pozhudinilE where vaLLI confesses to 'uLLam urugiDinum, uvagai URRu perugiDinum, kaLLattanamAy kaNgaLil kannam ezha vizhittEn' or sItA as she glances at rAmA through 'kandarmalai vaLai jOtiyi'...and so on and so forth.....

I am improvizing as I'm going along....

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 14 Apr 2007, 04:44

Feelings are like a spectrum of colors---like the paint shop color cards of a hundred hues of blues, greens and other colors. How many in white alone! Ravi, would I be right in guessing that a consummate dancer mixes these shades to a great extent--not sticking to one particular rasA at agiven moment--as an artiste would mix shades of colors to paint her picture? If art is reflection of life, surely that would be the way a dancer gives expression to her art. yashOdA, seeing KrishnA's playfulness reacts to it by a blend of emotions: surprise, mirth, a touch of anger and pride...

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 14 Apr 2007, 04:56

Arasi,
You are correct...not surprising why many of the consumate actresses of yesteryear were accomplished dancers who could 'speak volumes' with a mere raise of their eyebrows, a smoky glance from half opened lids, or a downturned corner of their mouth.....

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 14 Apr 2007, 09:30

Shankar
The answer is not convincing. As DRS states lajja is far too complex. I guess Bharata formulated the navarasas based on some criterion. Does he suggest that the other rasas can be produced through the combination? If so does a dancer practises to produce an 'undefined' rasa using the fundamental combinations. Now take bhakti for that matter. It is capable of being expressed in a variety of ways. Yet it can be an independent rasa in its own right! Take for example the devotee beseeching the Lord. This cannot be imbedded in KaruNa which is what the Lord is showing to the bhakta. Perhaps 'rasa' is a continuum like sruti though we are constraining the shruti to 22 (or whatever)!

vgvindan · Post by **vgvindan** » 14 Apr 2007, 12:11

cml,

Shame is indeed an element culturally generated among humans

There are two angles to this. Empirically, what you say is true. The other angle is that, body itself is a covering and shame is born out of being conscious of the body as a sustainable entity.

Sri tyAgarAja would say 'tanuvu tAnu kAdani encu vAniki tapamu sEyanEla' - 'what is the need of performing penances to one who has considered that he is not the body' (manasu svAdhIna - SankarAbharaNam).

First gOpis - (whether one believes that they are RSis born in order to enjoy the embrace of the Lord in bodily form or not) unless the consciousness of body cloth that obstructs the vision of the Lord is shed, no amount of austerities would help - remember gOpis were observing kAtyayani vrata for conferring kRSNa as husband (Srimad bhAgavatam, Book 10, Chapter 22 refers). However, this cannot come about in one go. Therefore, the first lesson in that direction, is stealing of the clothes by kRSNa. And, kRSNa tells them then, "Your desire in the shape of eagerness to worship Me is known to Me. (Nay) it has been approved of by Me; (hence) it deserves to materialize. The craving for enjoyment on the part of those whose mind is devoted to Me cannot lead to (further) enjoyment even as seeds of grain (once) fried or boiled are not as a general rule idntended to be sown."

The same theme is brought out by Sri tyAgarAja in his nauka caritra where gopis are asked by kRSNa to take off all their clothes including bodices in order to plug the hole that has developed in the boat.

The same thing happens with tulasi. After Sanka cUDa has gone for war, viShNu comes in the form of her husband and stays with her. But once tulasi recognises the fraud, she screams that her virtue has been violated and curses Him. She was to be reminded of her penances to attain the Lord.

I am giving hereunder the comments of Annie Besant on the episode of gopis -

â€œThe Gopis were Rishis, and the Lord Supreme as a babe is teaching them a lesson. But there is more than that. There is a profound occult lesson behind the story. When the Soul is approaching the Supreme Lord at one great stage of initiation, it has to pass through a great ordeal. Stripped of everything on which it has hitherto relied, stripped of everything that is not its inner self, deprived of all external aid, of all external protection, of all external covering, the soul itself, in its own inherent life, must stand naked and alone, with nothing to rely on save the life of the Self within it. If it flinches before the ordeal, if it clings to anything to which it has hitherto looked for help, if in the supreme hour, it cries out for friend or help, or even the Guru himself, the soul fails in that ordeal. Naked and alone it must go forth, with absolutely none to aid it save the divinity within itself. And it is that nakedness of the soul as it approaches the supreme goal, that is told of in that story.â€

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 14 Apr 2007, 20:22

Govindan,
You said it well. 'In the eyes of God' and 'in the eyes of worthless men' are different things altogether. Droupadi had immense love and faith in krishnA (and thus no reservations in asking for his help--she asks not for any idle boon but for keeping her dignity and that of her helpless husbands intact, in the midst of evil men). Figuratively, when you surrender to the Supreme, there are no reservations, shame or desires. I suppose that is what is retold in all the stories--clothed in metaphors...

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 14 Apr 2007, 22:25

VG
yes indeed! Nice point; this dichotomy of 'rasa' as body-based and mind-based. Krishna was indeed educating them to realize that they were not of the body!

it is remarkable how many of our daily problems will be solved once we learn to ignore 'the body' as 'self'. This approach is unique to Hinduism and does not find a place in the Western psycho-analytic armoury!It is impossible to persuade a 'Western Mind' to ignore the body whereas an Eastener can intrinsically understand the principle!

I prescribe the AcArya mantra for all ills:

manO buddhi ahankAra cittAni naaham
na ca shrOtra jivhE na ca ghrANa netrE.
na ca vyOma bhumi na tejo na vayuH
cidAnanda rupaH shivOham shivOham..

and here is my recipe if you care to swallow
http://www.rogepost.com/n/7531629808

vgvindan · Post by **vgvindan** » 14 Apr 2007, 23:19

many of our daily problems will be solved once we learn to ignore 'the body' as 'self'.

Yesterday I was seeing off a relative of mine who was not keeping very good health. I told her 'உடம்பை பாத்துக்கோ' - (oDambai pAttukkO) as we normally say in South (in telugu 'oLLu cUsukO'). After uttering these words, I suddenly realised I was indeed making a philosophical point.
I was addressing to the 'person' distinctly differentiating her from her body. Our languages are intrinsically woven around such innocuous but profound words. In English we would have told 'look after your health' - which does not convey the same meaning as spoken in our languages.
Indeed our ancestors were clever in weaving the language with such subtleties.
Blessed we are to be born in this land to be able to understand the philosophical truths with such wonderful and most down-to-earth examples.

vgvindan · Post by **vgvindan** » 14 Apr 2007, 23:27

cml,
Thanks for the nice audio.

ksrimech · Post by **ksrimech** » 15 Apr 2007, 03:01

By no means svAmi kArimAran is making an error here. He is still singing about the paramapuruSan SrImannArAyaNan. While singing the tamizh pAsurams (which people wrongly interpret as plain kAdal pAsurams), he gave us some of the esoteric meanings of the samskrita veda. He is telling us â€œHe is not a man (of this earth), He is not a woman (of this earth) and He is not a neuter either (of this earth)â€

paddu · Post by **paddu** » 16 Apr 2007, 10:57

Hello everyone,
Before I make my statements let me tell you all, that I am not a Sanskrit scholar or a Brahma Gnani.
I am writing this from whatever little I know from the stories I have heard and the conclusions that I have drawn from them.
I have not used God as Him/Her here.

My case is that things like God, Love are all Unspeakable. Let me explain..
Do we really know that God is a living being? I mean, what would you call the Sun, the Rivers, the Air, the Land......
Are they living beings? They are required by the living beings, but all put together they cannot make a living being.
When a person dies his body is there, but not the being. So this, Life Force, do we really understand this.
Is our language so developed that we could describe God? Is our sense's so developed that we can perceive God?
When I say I can feel God, which of my senses am I using? So, are we not branding God as a Living Being (Human),
because of our limitations (Be it our understanding, be it our senses, be it our language.) So then, why should
the supreme, fit in to our limited imagination. I am reminded of the story of 7 blind men and an Elephant, where each
one would touch a part of the elephant and say things that he knows. So, is this not the same case here.
Because we think God is invincible, we added two more extra hands(We might have added two legs, as it is not appealing, we have dropped this.), used the best of the adjectives to describe God. ..... I don't think
we have the capacity to know God. For those Bhaktas(Gnanies), have enough knowledge to feel God and they also have the grace to
accept that they do not have enough capacity to Understand God. In Kannada we have a saying - "SuryaniGe BeLaku thoorisuvudu"..
(loose translation... Showing light to the Sun). Even in the brightest of lights, we do not have the "Chakshu's" to see the Supreme.

Thanks
Paddu

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 16 Apr 2007, 20:01

Dear Paddu
Each of your question is the seed for a deep philosophical speculation. And the results of such are concretized inour Upanishads. Again the answer should be found by each individual within himself. Essentially it is Man created God . One has every right to crate 'God' with or without sex, with or without attributes or even deny His existence.
asti chEt asti |
nAsti chEt nAsti ||
Since 'I exist' it leads to the logical conclusion
aham brahmOsmi
But the crucial question which is yet to be answered is
'Who is this I ?'

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 16 Apr 2007, 20:48

The ideal one without the 'I'?
'nAnenum pEdamai nazhuvi maRaindu, Ananda vaDivAi akilamum kANum pOdu'? (when the 'I' slips away and everything is a blissful state of joy)?
These words are from the song kaNNan mugam thOnRudaDI...

karthik76 · Post by **karthik76** » 16 Apr 2007, 21:31

Although the Lord is described as attributeless, with our mAnusha prayatnam and our un-detachable sharIra and indriya sambandham, we are forced to perceive the Lord with attributes and then maybe, gradually mature to a state where we negate the existence of these attributes.

Fortunately or unfortunately, attributes are perceived more easily by us than the truth, and the perception and understanding of such attributes are the very foundation for them to be removed later. How our mind perceives the attributes is another thing. All our literature - vEdas, purAnas, itihAsas and all else, condition our mind to perceive these attributes facilitating our mind to attach itself to the Lord.

vichAra or contemplation is the key to this elevation in our perception of the real. Our mind is said to be the most powerful of everything we possess; and yet the most difficult for us to condition. We can think of the Sun as a source of heat and light that resulted from an unexplainable astronomical accident. We can also think of it as sUrya nArAyana bhagavan. It is up to our perception.

I think, the 'I' is an attribute of the self perceived by our ignorance and lives with us until our Atma-vichAra will challenge it. When the 'I' is challenged, its whereabouts are examined and one by one, the attributes fade away. When the attributes fade way, the 'I' has to fade away.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 16 Apr 2007, 21:53

It is interesting to note that there is no gender attached to the usage of 'I' (also to 'you') in most of the languages. When one says:
I go
nAn pOkirEn
aham gaccAmi
(in english, Tamil or Sanskrit (I dont know about Telugu/Kannada) you will not know the sex of the individual. However in Hindi
main jAtA/jAtI hun you immediately know the sex of the person.

Is the identification of sex with self cultural?

ksrimech · Post by **ksrimech** » 17 Apr 2007, 03:10

paddu wrote:"SuryaniGe BeLaku thoorisuvudu"..

nalla pazhamOzhi (good ol' saying).

Exactly what we are doing here in this thread!

vAcAmagOcaramE manasA varNimpa taramE rAma mahimA..................

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 23 Apr 2007, 00:09

Exactly what we are doing here in this thread!

A related philosophical question: What are we doing on this planet?

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 23 Apr 2007, 01:39

Hope this is not too much of a detour...and I am definitely going out on a limb....The difficulties we have regarding these philosophical questions may have been explained to some extent by 'Kurt GÃ¶del's incompleteness theorem' ( and related concepts like Turing's Halting problem and Rice's theorem from theoretical computer science ).

The statement of the theorem and the proof can get quite complicated but the essential point stated colloquially is "Any formal system that is interesting enough to formulate its own consistency can prove its own consistency if and only if it is inconsistent." Stated even more colloquially and a lot less rigorously, 'there are undecidable things about a system when you are inside the system' and to really know about them 'you have to be outside the system'. These undecidable things are usually about 'self reference' and the resulting infinite regression.

This may all point to the fact the concept of Brahman, due to the entangling of references to I ( self reference ), is undecidable by the human system. May be to really know Brahman, one has to step outside the human system. One act of 'stepping outside the human logical mind' is to experience Brahman and then come back to describe it all. Of course it can not be described with the human logical mind because that person is now back in the human system.

Then what is left is to have faith in the person who says he/she had 'stepped out' and follow their methods, paths and algorithms to see if that can be repeated and thus experience it for ourselves. That is the reason religious faith and religous philosophy are so closely connected.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 23 Apr 2007, 03:32

Brilliant VK!
Godel's proof resolves a lot of philosophical controversies!The reference to self and the infinite indeed are akin to the 'zero' and 'infinite' in maths which are unresolvable. The paradoxes melt away when we map the infinite line onto a limited circle which requires stepping out into a second dimension. Similarly the resolution of the paradoxes of philosophy do indeed need the leap of faith!

jayaram · Post by **jayaram** » 23 Apr 2007, 04:29

The non-believer can question the very concept of Brahman itself. Given that we have established the impossibility of proving it within our points of reference, maybe it's a figment of our collective imagination??

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 23 Apr 2007, 04:56

Jayaram
That does not follow!
We are unable recognize Brahmam in our 'waking' (rational) consciousness. Our maths and logic only quantify this consciousness though we do not fully understand the mechanics. There is 'superconsciousness' which exists when we dream. Indeed Brahmam is perceivable during that stage as the upanishads (meditation stage) vouch! Many of the visions our seers had were in the 'superconscious' state!

I feel CM has the potential to lead one to the periphery of that state without losing the self. That was the secret of the creativity of our inspired vaggeyakaras who were able to touch our souls through their music!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 23 Apr 2007, 06:00

That normal inability to move into the next higher dimension ( 'stepping outside' ) is then 'mAyA'? Like a hypothetical ant which only knows two dimensions will be astonished beyond belief about the sudden appearance of some food ( dropped by a human from a height ).

Another aspect of science that may be relevant to thinking about Brahman and mAyA is this: With quantum physics, the most powerful and workable physics we have so far, there are notions that seem to go beyond naive human conceptions of cause and effect. The notion of 'non local reality' is very natural for Quantum Physicists ( it has ceased to be a weird concept for many decades now ). Non local reality ( Bell's theorem ) states that the properties of two separated particles that were once together are interconnected. Whether it is a photon here and a photon next door or a pair of photons separated by billions of galaxies, it does not matter, they are related. You measure the property of one photon here, you can be sure of the property of the other photon billions of miles away. Which by itself may be odd, but one can reconcile with that. But the non-local cause and effect ( action at a distance ) comes into play when you change the property of the photon here and instantly the property of the distant photon is changed. This has been experimentally verified for short distances. The science behind this applies only to a pair of fundamental particles that were once together. But, given the big bang, everything were together then and hence we are all interconnected with the whole universe since we are all made of sub-atomic particles. The effects of that interconnection do not appear at the macro-level, the things we see and touch. But the next time you use a light switch that smoothly changes the brightness of a light, the theory behind what goes on under the hood drags in all these principles.

Add to this the more classical concepts of Quantum physics from the early 20th century: Is something a wave or particle? Answer: It is both. Depends on what you use to measure.

Extending this science to spiritual matters is not science but it is quite tempting. One can already see the parallels.

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 23 Apr 2007, 06:38

Aha !!
This thread is travelling through some glorious territory..

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 23 Apr 2007, 07:11

Maths is indeed yet another language. We have used it successfully to model physical systems and to discover physical laws. Philosophy is indeed 'metamathematics'. Hence it cannot be modelled using conventional maths. Hence we have been unsuccessful trying to quantify 'God' who belongs to metamathematics in an equation. Our upanishads are on the right track. nEti nEti is a denial of conventional reality! Our maths which is logicbound cannot solve the puzzle of 'unconventional' phenomena! In fact we do not know the language to describe the Divinity (gIta Chapter 11) Arjuna did need the escape from relity to have the vision!

I agree the quantum math is path-breaking but does not go far enough. Some of the current applications to modelling 'consciousnes'show some promise. But we need more bold thinking breaking the shakles of conventions! That is what I meant by 'stepping out'. Perhaps s new Einstein is already born in India who will clear the mystery in the near future

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 23 Apr 2007, 08:23

For example let us do a linguistic analysis of the mahAvakya
tattvamasi
This is the concise equation of 'God' that is given in the upanishad.
To solve this equation we need to assign values to the 'terms' and define the 'relation' operators.
tat is the subject which has the meaning 'that' (which is unknown).
tvam is 'you' which refers to 'self' which we understand physically (concretely).
asi is the action verb meaning 'you sre'. Since 'you' is already defined why this redundancy. I'll explain why? Symbolically the equation is
tat = tvam
The function of the equality sign (=) is taken over by the verb (asi). The other important element is the time element (which is here the instantaneous present). Whereas the LHS is eternal the RHS is NOT. But at his particular instant the equivalence is true. But will it be true eternally? The answer is no since the RHS will not exist eternally. In fact in Sanskrit you cannot even make that statement since the dhatu 'as' (to be) is an imperfect verb for which there is no future tense! In fact time itself is an illusion (mAyA); a human construct! The tvam was always part of tat and it is the action (karma) which separated it from tat. When the 'karma' disappears tvam merges with tat and you get 'tattvam' which means 'thatness' (brahmatvam) which is an abstract (not concrete) concept. This abstract realization naturally leads to the non-identification of the 'self' with the physical body which is not eternal. The process of realization is the dissolution of time. And as modern science shows time and space are intricately connected, dissolution of time leads to the simultaneous dissolution of space. What is left is a pure 'abstraction' which is nirguNa brahmam (one without any characteristics).

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 23 Apr 2007, 08:49

CML: Excellent. Good equation to work with along with your brilliant commentary.

Let us take this in baby steps..

What does the '=' sign imply? As you said it really does not mean 'equal' since it fails in the time dimension. How about the 3 spatial dimensions? I don't think there is any claim of equality in that regard either.

That leaves us with three possibilities in set-theoretical terms.

1) 'part of' relationship. The RHS is PART OF the LHS. It is only a part but not the whole in the four dimensions we know. This is also called 'containment'. RHS is contained in LHS.

2) Inheritance relationship. The RHS has inherited some characteristics of the LHS in the four dimensions we know. Another name for this is 'IS A' as in RHS IS A LHS. Set theory allows adding more stuff to RHS and still maintain that IS A relationship. How will that work in our case?

3) Identity relationship. LHS and RHS are both the same but referenced through different names

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 23 Apr 2007, 09:27

Let us pursue it further. Let us relax the equality to 'set inclusion'. The RHS IS PART OF LHS is a valid statement. Though the LHS is a nondefinable (?infinite) set it can have a proper sub set. Just as though the set of Positive Integers is infinite, the set I, say of all integers less than 100 is a limited subset having the characteristics of LHS. In fact the RHS has the potential become the LHS if you introduce the 'modulus' operator (stepping outside). In other words
X = k mod (100) will map all the positive integers onto the subset I. In a similar vein when the self projects the universe as the reflection of 'self' then the identification with the Divinity is complete. AcArya succinctly in

vishva.n darpaNadR^ishyamaananagariitulya.n nijaantargataM
pashyannaatmani maayayaa bahirivodbhuuta.n yathaa nidrayaa .
yaH saakshaatkurute prabodhasamaye svaatmaanamevaadvayaM
tasmai shrii gurumuurtaye nama ida.n shriidakshiNaamuurtaye ..

In other word the 'modulus' operation of maths maps on to 'mAyA'!

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 23 Apr 2007, 09:50

This is like a dream! To call this exchange between the two brilliant minds "My Dinner with Andre" would take the sheer poetry away from it. This is 'some' mind expanding experience. Cool, there you are, watching these two converse and taking it all in--don't call me a diplomat--not even the name I call ourselves sometimes--MAS (mutual admiration society).
This is beyond all that. There are no emoticons to describe this.
Awe?

paddu · Post by **paddu** » 23 Apr 2007, 10:18

Hello everyone,
Here we are trying to understand Brahma using tools like Science and Maths. These are tools of the mind (i.e., used to reason out.) This is Gnana. But what about a tool like Bhakti(The tool of the heart)? Science and Maths are used by very Skillful Workers (elite group, who understand Physics and Maths).
Bhakti is tool which anyone can use, through the act to acceptance (like in the sense, I know there is God, but I do not know what God is).
I think, even though one might not have the Bramha Gnana, it is enough to have Bhakti to feel the Supreme.

Thanks
Paddu

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 23 Apr 2007, 10:36

bhakti is only the means to gnAna which alone leads to liberation. AcArya without belittling 'bhakti' emphasizes this point again and again. For example refer vivEkacUDAmaNi

vadantu shaastraaNi yajantu devaan
kurvantu karmaaNi bhajantu devataaH
aatmaikyabodhena vinaapi muktiH
na sidhyati brahmashataantarepi.